The Juniper Tree by The Brother’s Grimm: Analyzing the differences and similarities in the Fairy Tale and the Film (Final Project)
The Juniper Tree is a German fairy tale that was published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. The fairy tale would later be re told as a film created by Nietzchka Keene in the early 90’s. If you were to read the fairy tale before watching the film, you would probably understand what Nietzchka Keene was trying to do with this film and it’s association with the popular fairy tale. The Brothers Grimm were retold and published this fairy tale with all the aspects that a true fairy tale holds. The story is extremely flat, short, but still has common fairy tale tropes. The movie however, seems to keep the aspects of flatness, normalized magic, and abstraction but in my opinion lacks intuitive logic.
Summary
The Juniper Tree by Brother’s Grim
This fairy tale is about a family who struggles to have a baby, and pray to God daily in order for them to have one. One day, the wife cuts her finger while peeling an apple under a juniper tree and wishes for a child that is as white as snow. Months later, the wife becomes sick after eating berries from the Juniper Tree, and she asks her husband to bury her under the tree. As seven months pass, she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy and dies under the juniper tree. After that, the husband marries a new lady who has a daughter. The story is set a few years after the boy is born and the father seems to be absent. The mother treats the boy quite poorly compared to her to daughter, and his father never seems to notice. One day, the step mother asks the boy to get her an apple out of a chest for her. While the boy is bent over with his neck arching between the opening of the chest, the step mother shut the chest as hard as she could and kills the boy. There is no context as to why she does this, but she continues by chopping the boy up and putting him in a stew. This all happens while the boys father is away from the home. When he returns home, his new wife feeds him the stew that has his son it. When he questions where his son is, the step-mother tells him that he went to live with his family somewhere else. The father does not seem to care as he seems to be enjoying the soup that contains pieces of his own son. After the dinner, the step mother’s daughter goes and buries the bones of the boy under the juniper tree with a handkerchief. Afterwards a bird appears, that is supposed to represent the boy. It sings multiple lullabies to forshadow what is to come in the story. The bird brings joy to everyone in the family as the bird seems to remind them of the boy, except for the stepmother. At the end of the story she goes outside of the house to hear the bird better and a large boulder falls on her head, killing her. This is meant to be the happy ending, as the boy does not come back to life.
The Juniper Tree, a film by Nietzchka Keene and an analysis on the films differences from the original fairy tale. The film does not include scenes about life before the boy was born, and starts right when the step mother arrives to the house of the husband and the boy.
The movie is also set in the eye of Margit (The Daughter in the fairy tale) and her older sister Katla (The step mother in the fairy tale), after they flee their home where everyone was dead. They meet Johann on their trip to finding a home, and Katla puts a spell on him that we assume allows her to control him in some way. This brings in a new aspect to the original story that was left out. Margit and Katla seem to be witches or come from a group of people who have powers. He brings Katla and Margit back to his home, where they meet Jonas. Jonas is not too happy about them being there and is not afraid to let them know. Throughout the entire film Jonas questions why they are even interrupting him and his father’s lifestyle, and Katla does not seem to take as well as Margit does. At one point, Jonas catches Katla doing magic, and calls her out on it. This puts Katla in a bad position as Jonas begins to suspect that she and her sister are witches, and that they may be there to harm him and his father.
At some point in the movie, Margit starts seeing a lady that she can only see, who sits outside of her window in the room that she stays in with Jonas. She confronts the lady alone, and another time with Jonas, but he could not see her. On the IMDB page for the movie, the character is listed as Margit’s mother. This is interesting as, Margit’s mother in the story was the evil step mother. At this point of the movie, Johann has gotten tired of Katla, as he has caught her abusing and pestering her son several times at this point. Katla is starting to feel that Johann will never love her at all. One day, she takes Jonas out to a cliff and tells him to jump after he tells her that she is a witch. She tells him to jump because he thinks that a magic amulet that Margit gave him will protect him. He jumps, and dies. Katla takes Jonas back to the house, where she cooks him in a stew while his father is gone. Just like in the original fairy tale. Johann seems to be sad and worried, as his son has been out for a while. Katla convinces him that it is normal for him to be out past dark, and feeds him the stew that contains his son. The stew seems to make him happy, as he asks for more. He continues to eat the stew, and Margit goes to bury his bones under a juniper tree in the back of the house.
In the morning, a bird comes and Margit believes it to be Jonas. She is happy and tell Johann and Katla, who seem to be completely disconnected from each other. At the end of the story, Johann leaves Katla and Margit with no explanation.
The Differences and Similarities
As you can see, the two works are similar to each other. The fairy tale of The Juniper Tree leaves out a lot of detail that would make the story more understanding and cohesive, but at the same time the story respects those core values of having flatness, abstraction, normalized magic, and intuitive logic. The film removes the flatness that the tale has by giving characters names, and explaining who the two women that have infiltrated the father and his son’s household. A very noticeble difference between the two works was the juniper tree itself. The tree in the fairy tale was talked about more than it was shown it the film. The mother in the tale was also not present in the film, but she was mentioned by Jonas when he was talking to Margit. The death of Jonas in the film was also less gruesome than the one of the boy in the fairy tale. Also, Katla did not die at the end of the film, as her character did in the original fairy tale.
Link to the film’s IMDb site
